RANDOM READINGS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 561, 23 April 1913, Page 7

RANDOM READINGS.

FRENCH AUTHORESS'S SUPERSTITION. Mdme. Adam, the well known French authoress, js profoundly superstitious, and she says that her beliefs are founded on experience. The breaking of mirrors has always been associated with misfortune, but in order that the fatal presage may have all its worst consequences, the glass must break of itself, that is to say, without any one touching it. Those broken by accident are less dangerous in their effects.

"One day," says Mdme. Adam, "when I was staying at Gif, a mirror broke in the left wing of the house, near the stables. The same week a darling little donkey, that I was very fond of, was crushed to death; one -of my horses took inflammation of the lungs through standing at a friend's door too long in the snow, and died ; and another broke its leg and had to be killed. The affair-of the second mirror was loss tragic. One morning my husband broke a glass. He had promised to lend Gambetta that evening £2,000, and I advised him to be

careful, or he would lose the money. 'Give it only to himself,' I said. He did so, and told Gambetta about the accident to the mirror. 'lt's too late to lake the money to the bank today,' replied the statesman, 'but I'll put it in the safe, and see that it is well guarded.' He then called his secretary, and gave him orders to sleep in front of the safe, and not to leave it till he was relieved. The secretary promised not to desert his post for a moment. But in the morning, feeling' faint after an anxious night, almost without sleep, he went to the restaurant downstairs for a cup of coffee. He was gone only a few minutes, but when he re-entered Gambetta's study the safe had been opened and the money was gone. It was never found again. The third mirror fatality happened after the return of my husband and myself to Paris from Les Bruyeres. M. Adam was ill, and when he got home he asked me to go upstairs to his room and get him something he had forgotten. What was my surprise to find on entering the room that the toilet-glass was cracked from top to bottom. I had an instant presentiment of evil. 'My husband,' I said, 'will never return to Les Bruyeres.' M. Adam died the same year."